Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday that he would visit Pearl Harbor, becoming the first sitting Japanese leader to go to the site of Japan’s attack 75 years ago that pulled a stunned United States into World War II. Abe, right, listens to a question from members of the press after meeting with President-elect Donald Trump, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2016, in New York. Abe made a stop in New York to meet with the president-elect while en route to an APEC meeting in Lima. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Abe said in a televised news conference that he would travel to the U.S. naval base with President Barack Obama during a trip to Hawaii on Dec. 26 and 27. In this Nov. 20, 2016 file photo, U.S. President Barack Obama, right, talks with Abe after they joined leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) for a group photo in Lima, Peru. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

In this June 3, 2015 file photo released by the U.S. Navy, sailors work to repair the floating dock next to the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, after the USNS Mercy hospital ship struck the memorial's dock in May as it was leaving Pearl Harbor. Japan's leader says he will visit Pearl Harbor with U.S. President Barack Obama at the end of this month. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday, Dec. 5, 2016, he will visit Hawaii in late December and hold a final summit meeting there with Obama before the American leader leaves office. (Laurie Dexter/The U.S. Navy via AP, File)

In this May 27, 2016 file photo, U.S. President Barack Obama, right, shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western Japan, as Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the world's first atomic bomb attack. Abe said Monday, Dec. 5, he will visit Pearl Harbor with Obama at the end of this month, becoming the first leader of his country to go to the U.S. Naval base in Hawaii that Japan attacked in 1941, propelling the United States into World War II. Atomic Bomb Dome is seen in the background. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin (not pictured) on the sidelines of the 2016 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on November 19, 2016 at the Swissotel Lima in Lima, Peru. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Tass/Abaca Press/TNS)

TOKYO – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will become the first sitting Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor, he said Monday, making a symbolic visit this month to the site of the Japanese attack 75 years ago that pulled a stunned United States into World War II.

Abe said in a televised news conference that he would travel to the U.S. naval base with President Barack Obama during a trip to Hawaii on Dec. 26 and 27.

By visiting Pearl Harbor, Abe will in effect be reciprocating a trip earlier this year by Obama to Hiroshima, where the United States dropped a nuclear bomb at the end of the war with Japan in 1945. No sitting U.S. president had previously visited the city.

“We must never repeat the horror of war,” Abe said. “I want to express that determination as we look to the future, and at the same time send a message about the value of U.S.-Japanese reconciliation.”

Abe’s visit will come just a few weeks after the 75th anniversary of the attack, which occurred on Dec. 7, 1941. Carried out by Japanese bombers and fighter planes launched from a fleet of aircraft carriers that had quietly slipped within striking distance of Hawaii, the attack killed more than 2,000 Americans and sank a number of U.S. warships, including the battleship Arizona, whose wreck has become a memorial to the battle.

Just as the decision to drop the bomb on Japan to end the war has long been the subject of a fraught moral and political debate in the United States, the decision to attack Pearl Harbor has been enormously delicate in Japan.

Politicians there still pay homage to the “heroes” of Pearl Harbor – meaning the Japanese aviators and others who died in the attack. There is a museum exhibit in their honor at Etajima, an island off Hiroshima, that once served as the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, a Japanese equivalent of the U.S. Navy’s training academy at Annapolis.

Abe did not elaborate Monday on his plans for the Pearl Harbor visit. He said he hoped to “comfort the souls of the victims.”

Yet his words will be much-debated and carefully measured. During the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, in 1991, Japanese officials said they were “reflecting deeply” on their nation’s deeds but did not think an apology to the United States was appropriate.

“Is it imperative that Prime Minister Abe say, ‘We are sorry’? I don’t think so,” said Tony Cordero, founder of Sons and Daughters in Touch, a group of families of service members who died in combat. “But it is vital that his words and actions demonstrate that regret.”

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